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Tuesday, 23 October 2012

October Flash - Day 22

The Flash Fiction Project at Google+ has something new going on!There will be a visual prompt for every day in October, and I'm going to try to write a (very) short piece for it every day as well. Due to time zone differences, I'll try writing and posting mine early in the morning, so it's a day after the original post for me, but still the same for them.Let the fun begin! Here is the prompt for today:

"Are you sure this will work?"
"It has to," Nathan said, adjusting the last cables. "We need all the power we can get."
"And this... thing will collect it?"
"That's right."
"It can collect belief?" Jimmy was still sceptic.
"Indeed. It will detect and collect every last drop of Christianity from the whole country."
"And then Jesus will come back to life."
"That's the plan, Jimmy."
"Huh."
"Right, I think we're all set." With a grim smile, Nathan pushed a few buttons and pulled a huge lever from "off" to "on". The gigantic metallic cross began to vibrate, humming shyly.
"Let's see what we're getting here." Together with Jimmy, he moved towards a big monitor, which was blank.
"Hmm, that's weird."
"What is, Nathan?"
"We should see a rising curve here, of the storage being filled up with pure, distilled belief."
"Maybe it takes some time to detect it."
Nathan laughed. "Why? We're all Christians! It should go up like... something that goes up very fast."
"Huh."
He frowned at the doubt in Jimmy's voice. "What is it? Do you think we missed something?"
"Honestly?" Jimmy shrugged. "I don't think you'll get much belief round here. Not what you'd call Christianity, anyway."
"Oh? And why is that?"
"Well, why would you want to resurrect Jesus?"
"Oh, come on! He could bring peace to the world, convert all the non-believers, make life better."
"What about the non-believers who don't want to be converted?"
"They will have to follow him, anyway."
"But that's not a Christian plan. We should except people as they are, not force them to join in our religion."
Behind them, something went "beep". A dot appeared on the monitor.
"Oh Jimmy, do you really believe what you are saying? Don't you think we should strive to spread the only true religion?"
"No," he said, simply. There was another "beep". Jimmy looked at the monitor. "But I'm really glad that you constructed this belief-storage-thing believing that you were doing the right thing. Otherwise, who knows what it would collect? Filled with your thoughts, we'd probably get Frankenstein's monster instead of Jesus..."